With corporate factories scattered across the globe, and with customers also scattered across the globe, shipping of products has become a central part of making global business work. Hundreds of shipping companies provide for transit of various packages of all weights and sizes, generally in corrugated boxes known popularly as “cardboard boxes.”
The expense of conducting far flung business can increase greatly, however, if products are damaged in transit. Shippers are not always concerned with proper handling of shipped goods, and mechanical handling equipment has even less concern. As a result, packages may get jostled, dropped, hit, poked, and tossed. The sudden deceleration from a moving or flying package hitting a solid object, like the floor, causes many products to break before they even reach a customer. As a result, the products may need to be returned and then fixed or replaced. This involves both shipping a new (or repaired) product, and repackaging and shipping the broken product. Additional costs may attend to such replacement or repair, as companies must track additional products, and must dispose of material from defective products. All of this can be very expensive.
Thus, it can be important to package products so that they will not be damaged in transit. Various cushioning materials have been used in shipping boxes, such as so-called “bubble wrap” and “foam peanuts.” These materials are generally placed or wrapped around a product so as to interfere with any sudden jolts to the box in which the goods are placed. Equipment (e.g., personal computers) is also frequently held in place by foam blocks that wrap all around the equipment or hold the equipment on the edges or corners, and also keep the equipment spaced away from the edges of the box.
It can also be important to enable products to be easily removed from their packaging for ultimate use by a customer. Packaging designed to protect a product during shipping may create challenges for consumers trying to unpack the product. For example, Styrofoam blocks that do a good job of holding equipment in place may have to engage the walls of a shipping box tightly to provide such protection. But that tight interference may make it difficult to separate the equipment from the box.